and just as stunning four weeks later because they weren't ready for it for the simple reason they weren't used to it. well, it happened. and let's assume not for the last time. somebody may actually reach a deal on tacks and spending on the upper income people and those who vitally depend on things like social security and medicare and medicaid. they should consider who won and who needs to be considered here. why? because the nobodies is the big shots like they call them also have a stake in how this deal gets cut. and that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. "the ed show" starts right now. good evening, americans. welcome to "the ed show" from new york. the republican plan to solve the fiscal cliff is the same one america rejected on november 6th. this is "the ed show." let's get to work. flabbergasted. i said he can't be serious. >> john boehner finally puts a plan on the table. and breaking news the middle class gets the shaft. richard wolffe and molly ball on the republican political theater and the white house response. bob costas issues a common

sense relief for gun control in the wake of the kansas city chief murder suicide story. and the right wing just explodes. >> bob costas based on the standards of our society today deserves to be fired for these remarks. bill roden and dan gross respond. corporate profits break records again. we'll tell you what it means for workers. just when you thought it was too early for a horse race, i'll ask michael if this was the first campaign video for decision 2016. >> good to have you with us, folks. thanks for watching. john boehner is hanging on to their ideological hats. the latest attempt to change the conversation is a plan the american people rejected a month

ago. the republican counteroffer to the white house plan relies on $800 billion. the plan does not raise any tax rates on the top income earners. it also contains $600 billion in health care cuts. who has been for that? nobody. there are $300 billion in cuts in mandatory government programs and another $300 billion in cuts to agency budgets and discretionary spending. the speaker's office sent a letter outlining the plan saying new revenue would be generated through pro-growth tax reform that closes special interest loopholes and deductions while lowering rates. oh boy. it's the mitt romney plan again. the offer letter actually described the proposal as the bowles plan. republicans say the plan is based on the outline for the debt commission co-chair.

the approach outlined in the letter speaker boehner sent to the president does not represent the simpson-bowles plan nor is it the bowles plan. the white house also rejected the offer in a statement today. the republican letter released today does not meet the test of balance. in fact, it actually promises to lower rates for the wealthiest americans and sticks the middle class with the bill. their plan includes nothing new and provides no details on which e deductions they would eliminate, which loopholes they would close or which medicare savings they would achieve. hold it right there, folks. loopholes, aren't we tired of hearing about loopholes? timothy geithner made appearances on all the sunday talk shows to hammer home the specifics of the white house plan. republicans tried to counter his presence using their favorite media source. >> timothy geithner scheduled a round of interviews, but friday afternoon speaker boehner's

office said he wanted to come on fox news to tell his side of the story. >> gosh, i wish i could get those calls. they gave john boehner the floor but he showed up with nothing. >> we have laid it out for him. a dozen different ways to raise the revenue from the richest americans as the president would describe them. >> what's the biggest proposal you put on the table since the election in terms of raising revenue from closing loopholes and deductions? >> there's a lot of ways to get there, but you could cap deductions at a percent of income. that would be one way to get there. you could eliminate deductions for the wealthiest. >> let me ask you a couple specifics. would you limit the home mortgage deduction? >> there are a lot of options. i'm not going to debate this. >> really? not going to debate this? so he specifically did not say no on the home mortgage deduction. didn't do that. that's the biggest write off

that middle class americans have. nor any specifics on loopholes. give us just one loophole, mr. boehner. can't you get one? our tax code is how many thousands of pages and you can't give us one loophole? well, on tv and on paper, republicans refuse to offer details about just how they are going to get all this revenue. timothy geithner explained by the republicans can't sell the specifics of their plan. >> if republicans would like to go beyond these reforms, they should tell us how they want to do it. >> what if they were to propose the republican budget that they passed? >> there's no reason they are going to do that. the american people could take a careful, hard look at that plan and they found no mer merit in it. >> this thing called the ryan plan, president obama continues to take his case to the american

people who rejected the ryan plan. today he answered questions directly on twitter. one person asked, why won't keeping tax rates low across the board encourage more hires and therefore, more tax revenue? the president responded, high-end tax cuts do the least for economic growth and cost almost $ 1 trillion. extending middle class cuts boosts consumer demand and growth. the white house released a video today showing how president obama has been consistent on his message throughout the last couple of years. it was central to his campaign. >> we need to give tax relief to working families trying to raise their kids to keep them healthy, send them to college, keep a roof over their heads. that's the choice in this election. that's one of the reasons i'm running for a second term as president. >> how quickly we forget. in the words of secretary timothy geithner, this is why republicans have no choice but accepting the tax increases on the wealthiest americans. >> why does it make sense for

the country to force tax increases on all americans because a small group of republicans want to extend for 2% of americans? why does that make any sense. there's no reason why that should happen. we can't afford those tax rates. we can't afford them. so we're not going to get to the end now without a recognition of republicans of that basic reality. that's going to be the responsible thing to do. my judgment is they are going to do it because there's no alternative to that. >> behind closed doors, republicans know there's no alternative. abc news reports house republicans are preparing to extend the middle class tax cuts and push everything else off into next year. two senior republicans tell abc news this doomsday plan is becoming the most likely e scenario. in public, republicans are pretending the election just never happened. in private, they know the end is very near and their options are limited. this is why they put it out today, to change the

conversation to make people think they really have some plan out there. they don't. get your cell phones out. i want to know what you think. tonight's question, whose plan is better for the middle class? text a for democrats, text b for republicans to 622639. we'll bring the results later on in the show. joining me tonight is robert riech, former u.s. labor secretary and author of "beyond outrage." i have been following your writings on all of this. in a short phrase, you have gone down this road how quickly we can explain who gets hurt. let's take the republican plan for what they are presenting. who gets hurt in this deal? >> it's reverse robin hood, ed. it's the same plan that paul ryan and mitt romney were touting. it's exactly the same. they want to have limited

deductions for the rich, but will not specify what the deductions are. they want to raise the age of eligibility for medicare, thereby cutting medicare and hurting a lot of people. . they want to cut a lot of spending. they are not clear what spending they want to cut. they just know that a lot of it is domestic discretionary spending. a lot of the programs that they depend on and yet they refuse to raise tax rates on the rich. we have been here before. this is deja vu all over again. >> how troubling is it to you when you hear john boehner not protect the mortgage interest? e i mean, that tells me that they are going to go wherever they have to go to the middle class to get the money. >> well not only are they going to go after the middle class, they are obviously going to go avenue the middle class because given that we have a large budget deficit down the road and

given that if we don't want to and they don't want to cut military spending, what's left? they will have to cut programs beneficial to the middle class. this is another example, this is a continuation of the war on the middle class that they started years ago. now it's becoming clear for everybody to see. it was very clear before the election, but we had an election. americans repudiated the republican idea. reverse robin hood economics and yet they are coming back with it. over and over and over again. i think the fact that boehner will not schedule a vote on the middle class extension of the bush tax cuts that the president wants, the senate has already passed this. boehner is under increasing pressure to schedule a vote on this and get it out of the way. once they do that, the game is over. >> nancy pelosi is trying to take care of that. she plans to bring a discharge

petition to the floor of the house tomorrow. this would force republicans to openly accept or reject the middle class tax cuts. did this influence the republicans desire to release a plan? do you think this conversation in recent days about this technique that she's going to put on the floor, do you think that prompted this deal today? >> if you call this deal a plan. there's nothing here, ed. this is exactly what romney was touting. they don't want to raise taxes on the rich. the top 2% are held basically sack ri singt. >> what about pelosi's move? >> they are going to be vulnerable. the back story here is not only 2012 and the election of 2012. the back story is 2014. if republicans continue to stick to being the shoes for the wealthy in this country and maintaining a war on the middle class, america is going to vote

them out of office. we're going to have a republican party that not only is a minority party, but is a minority party for years. >> robert, great to have you with us tonight. i appreciate your time. and this programming note. democratic leader nancy pelosi will join me tomorrow for an e exclusive interview. you won't want to miss it. remember to answer tonight's question. answer that on twitter and facebook. coming up, republican maneuvering on the fiscal cliff can't hide the truth. they still want the middle class to bare all the pain. richard wolffe and molly ball join me. stay with us. we're right back. ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] everyone deserves the gift of all day pain relief. this season, discover aleve.

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record-breaking corporate profits show the economy is well on the road to recovery. what does it mean for workers? i'll give you some numbers and sam stein will be along with the conversation. . and world leaders say farewell to hillary clinton with a ringing endorsement. you'll want to see this video.

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it's the ultimate combination of speed, small size, and low-cost printing. welcome back to "the ed show." thanks for watching tonight. republicans are doing a lot of maneuvering on the fiscal cliff. president obama and the democrats have put forward a plan relying mostly on raising more revenue from the wealthiest 2% of the country. republicans rely mostly on cuts affecting the middle class and the poor and republicans aren't specific about how they get $800

billion in revenue. for the conversation, let's turn to richard wolffe, msnbc political analyst and vice president and executive director of msnbc.com. and molly ball, political reporter for "the atlantic." the republican proposal includes ryan's voucher program for medicare. we're not even a month away from the election and they are throwing up on the wall everything that was reejected. why are they doing this? >> well, i can tell you why they think they have a mandate. they are throwing insults at each other and that means they are engaging. they may be way apart in terms of the lessons learned. but house republicans have put in their initial offer here. and you know, the problem for house republicans is not only

have they nod looked at the polls, maybe they are choosing their own before the election, but not only are they not looking at the same numbers, but they are trying to address a different problem. they think entitlements are the only thing that matters. that's the longer term issue. it isn't even dealing with the deficit problem that needs to be dealt with. as long as they are engaging, something is going to move here. >> molly, the priorities in these plans couldn't be more different with republicans getting almost everything through cuts. how could the white house begin to accept this at any level. are we headed for the cliff? >> the white house doesn't seem to be accepting it. the reaction from the other side seems to be, okay, this is a good start, but let's see something real. you can see, i think, the box that republicans have painted themselves into. i think this offer is sort of a recognition of how little leverage they have. they were being hurt by this

perception that they weren't offering specifics and coming to the table. they offered something. it's going to make some conservatives scream with the tax hikes in it, but it's also not seeming to get any traction with democrats who are saying it's not specific enough and doesn't go far enough because it doesn't raise those rates. >> what about the report from abc news? what about what's going to happen to let the middle class tax cuts pass and everything else go over the cliff? >> it's quite clear they are going to want to say they reduce taxes and try and cushion themselves against the political fallout for what's going to follow. but you know, they are not being honest in the kind of offer that the house speaker made. in letting these tax rates slide and playing around with inflation measures, this is the kind of smoke and mirror economics and cuts that they said they didn't like when they were talking about the grand bargain. there's an honesty approach that

they have to deal with as they think about the politics and the optics of how the fiscal cliff gets resolved. in the end, they have got not much. they can say they have a mandate so it's equal, but it really isn't and they know that. >> we seem to know as much about mitt romney's taxes as we do about the loopholes republicans are willing to close in this. they can't offer any specifics. is this a turnoff for the people? >> in fairness we have to recognize that there's been a lack of specifics on both sides here. they are negotiating in public. you notice that that's how this stuff is coming out. it's not phone calls between the two sides or closed-door meetings. we don't know what spending democrats would cut and we haven't even begun the entitlements discussion, which the president is theoretically open to. so there's a lot that still needs to happen. i mean for you and me and normal people, three weeks away may seem like a short time, but

there's a feeling that this has barely even begun. >> here's senator bob corker and clairk mccaskill. here it is. >> great detail, very painful cuts to medicare. i just did it in a 240-page bill that i have shared with the white house, shared with my colleagues. >> if you don't think there's more money to be cut in contracting at the pentagon, you don't understand what has happened at the pentagon. >> as much as i love claire, those are not the painful cuts that have to happen. we have to look at deeper reforms to entitlements. >> it amazes me how republicans can sit there and label the earned benefit programs as the cuts that have to take place when we have been in two wars that weren't paid for and big pharma that took us to where we are. how did we get here? molly, how did we get so far in the hole? what did we do?

>> well, we spent money we didn't have, obviously. now we're looking for a way to resolve that. i think what you're hearing, too, part of the nervousness and part of the problem pr republicans is the things they are talking about aren't popular. as you've talked about a lot, there's political will to raise taxes on the wealthy. there's political will to make cuts in the pentagon. there isn't political will to cut entitlements. . so the kinds of things that republicans say they want to do, including preserving the tax rates for the top 2%, are not things there's a huge amount of public support for. >> republicans clearly are ignoring the political will of the people. >> they are just picking and choosing, which is what mitt romney did. you pick and choose and you don't get above 47%. they are trying to deal with the secondary problem and not with the first one. we got into this deficit because

there was an economic downturn because of the bush tax cuts. you have to deal with that. you want higher tax rates and you want actually to lower spending on military. but you have to deal with entitlements, but until you agree on the problem and the politics, you're not going to come up with a resolution. >> richard wolffe and molly ball, thank you. coming up, republicans told voters the president's policies were bad for the economy. new data tells a different story. we'll set the record straight, next. and after another senseless tragedy involving gun violence, bob costas speaks out. now the right wing noise machine is going after him. dan gross is here to talk about the country's gun culture. stay tuned. having you ship my gifts couldn't be easier.

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welcome back to "the ed show." we want to set the record straight on the economy this evening. let's start with a quick refresher course on how republicans tried to demon news the president during the election. he was called a socialist, accused of being wrong for america, labeled just a big disappointment. >> the president hasn't disappointed you because he wanted to. the president has disappointed america because he hasn't led america in the right direction. >> here's reality. the department of commerce reports corporate profits hit an all-time high in the third quarter of this year. profits are up more than 18%

over last year. this is booming. profits have only been going up since president bush left office and the congress passed president obama's stimulus package. here's the bad news. business owners aren't using those record profits to pay their workers. profits hit an all-time high, but workers wages have simply bottomed out. in fact, wages have hit an all-time low. let's take a look at this. it seems to be some kind of income fairness in this country. until about 2000. wages have gone from here down to there in 12 years. have you heard the term "off the charts"? here we go. corporate profits, then the recession hit. but back at it. there's a pretty huge separation between corporate profits and wages. one line is going off the charts

and the other one is going down. but there's good news. even though wages are lower, consumers are basically driving the economy. consumer confidence reached its highest point since february of 2008. in a new report, it shows the automobile industry continues to roar back. almost every auto maker is reporting big sales gains. dodge is up for the 32nd month in a row. chrysler sales up 14% over last year. the hyundai plant in alabama is running at full capacity and can't keep pace with demand. there's no question the economy is coming back with president obama in charge. and there's one more thing we need to set the record straight on and that is -- >> my dad was head of a car company. i like american cars. i would do nothing to hurt the u.s. auto industry. >> nothing. the car lover is now driving a brand new audi q7. is that it?

romney is spotted in san diego climbing into this brand new $46,000 ride? this car is made in slovakia. the economy is on the road to recovery. let's bring in sam stein, reporter for hu"the huffington post." there's so much evidence that the republicans had the wrong narrative during the election. they have the wrong narrative right now. this should be really a boom for the democrats right now in the conversation world, shouldn't it? >> yeah, like you mentioned, consumer confidence is growing. the wind is at the president's back with respect to how people perceived the economy. the factor here is what happens if, for instance, in the process of these negotiations, consumer confidence dips. people feel like they are troubled by investing money and the economy goes back into a

recession nar status. that's what the president wants to avoid with this fiscal cliff conversation. that's why a deal is going to be hammered out probably before the end of the year. the president does have a little political head wind. >> this gives, i think, labor a real opportunity to show the country the graph that we showed, the separation between corporate profits are right there at a record level and wages are going down. the republicans have been so strong to even want to take away workers voices in the workplace. but in these fiscal cliff negotiations, do you really think that the republicans see this chart and they need that economy to slow down a little bit if they are going to win th this? >> maybe so. the income inequality in this country has been a problem but it has been for decades. it's been exacerbated by policies passed more recently. so when you go into negotiations, you ask, is it politically correct to be out there arguing that the 2% need to have their tax cuts

protected? that's the problem that republicans face. labor does have a bit of an upper hand on this one. but then again, you look at all the stuff being offered as concessions. it's going to hit the working class. they know the history of the negotiations. they know the entitlement programs that the cuts that tend to be made affect them more than others. but republicans -- they have an image problem when they are out there saying we need to protect the tax rates of the top 2%. everyone knows the recent history of income inequality. >> could the uncertainty hurt the economy? i know you have talked about that and written about that in the past. why should we be afraid of just going over the cliff, getting rid of the bush era tax cuts. they were extended in the last session. >> that's a great point. economists have said it's not

really a cliff. if you hit it, it's not like all the cuts happen at once. it's not like everyone pays a huge chunk. you can fix it in the subsequent days, weeks, months. it wouldn't have as much as an impact. except for the idea that it would affect people's confidence. wall street would be hurt by it. so you roll the dmies that limited dense. but you're hitting an important point. it's not a fiscal cliff. it's like a small slope. >> the statistics say that corporate america has got a little bit to give. sam stein, good to have you with us. there's a lot coming up in the next half hour. >> guns have nothing to do with the culture we live in. >> the radical right drowns out the scent over handgun violence and they are coming after bob costas. >> bob costas, based on our standards, deserves to be fired for these remarks. >> dan gross, president of the brady campaign and bill rhoden of "the new york times" respond. a tribute video to hillary

clinton has everyone talking about a presidential run. >> people not just like her. >> michael tomasky joins me on that later. and republican runner up rick santorum has a new gig at the weekly world news. not quite, but it's close. detail its ahead. ♪ i'd like to thank eating right, whole grain, multigrain cheerios! mom, are those my jeans? [ female announcer ] people who choose more whole grain tend to weigh less than those who don't. multigrain cheerios with less chronic osteoarthritis pain. imagine living your life with less chronic low back pain. imagine you, with less pain. cymbalta can help. cymbalta is fda-approved to manage chronic musculoskeletal pain. one non-narcotic pill a day, every day, can help reduce this pain. tell your doctor right away if your mood worsens,

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head coach and team manager. we're faced with a senseless tragedy involving gun violence. last night sports caster bob costas used the words of jason withlock to weigh in. >> our current gun culture ensures that more and more domestic disputes will end in the ultimate tragedy and more convenient store confrontations coming from loud music from a car will leave more teens bloodied and dead. handguns exacerbate our flaws and bait us into embracing confrontation rather than avoiding it. in the coming days, jovan belcher's actions and their possible connection to football will be analyzed. who knows. but here is what i believe. if jovan belcher didn't possess a gun, he and kasandra perkins would both be alive today. >> that statement has enraged the great defenders of america's

gun culture at fox news. they put forth their best efforts to smear bob costas in the everies. >> bob costas in the standards of our industry deserves to be fired for these remarks. >> he's a ghoul. >> it's a fantasy land to waste time thinking if i had a magic wand, i would get rid of all the guns and we would have world peace. >> i don't know if it's appropriate less than 24 hours after the event to make that stance. >> when is it appropriate to talk about gun control in america? jovan belcher could have used any number of weapons to kill his girlfriend kasandra perkins. but having a gun in the house sure made it a hell of a lot easier. in a year we have seen tragedy after tragedy, whether it be in the streets of chicago or the movie theater in colorado, we as

a country seem to accept it. the gun lobby is winning. in fact, nra cea is out fear mongering today. he's accusing bob costas of trying to piggy backing his social agenda. he told cnn he expects an unprecedented fight over gun control in congress next year, e yet he would not give any specific legislative examples. he says "i think it's going to come hard, i think it's going to come fast, and i think it's going to come soon." . i hope it does. i'm joined by bill rhoden, columnist of "the new york times" and dan gross, president of the brady campaign to prevent violence. gentlemen, thank you for joining us tonight. it gets a lot of attention because it's sports and it's the nfl. but dan, to comment on the comments. will he take up the fight in the

near future? >> i believe it will. and i believe it will because it's a conversation that the american public wants to have. the one thing that i don't accept that you said in the introis that the american public just accept it is. i don't think they accept it. the american public doesn't want to live in a country where there are 32 murders every day. the american public knows we are better than this. we created this petition that the american public is signing by the hundreds of thousands saying that they want to call on their elected officials to do something. the majority support sensible measures. the thing that the gun lobby does is take it to the extreme pi any attempt to curb the violence is about taking people's guns away. i will say on behalf of the brady campaign and the majority of americans, nobody wants to do that. we want to educate people about the dangers associated and the risks associated with firearms.

and we want to do what we can from a policy perspective to keep guns out of the dangerous people's hands. there are tangible things we can do. to the extept they can make their voice heard, this will be a conversation we'll have with this congress. >> there's been no record of the perpetrator of this crime. it's a sad situation. we don't know much about belcher's mental statement or if there was brain injury involved. should the nfl discourage players from owning firearms? >> this is such a sad day and sad story. and i applaud costas. i don't think enough voices can be raised against this gun ownership. but the problem you have is number one, they shouldn't have played the game. that shows you that the priorities are off from day one. they should not have played that game. once again, the money wins out.

obviously, i think you have to discourage people from carrying guns. and particularly in the national football league, with everything that's going on about the clear connection now between mental health and brain damage and erratic behavior exacerbated and probably one of the most violent games on earth, romeo kre nel that belcher was a leader and one of the first guys in drills. we didn't see this coming. and that's the problem. number one, they are not trained to see it coming. the gun lobby is just so overwhelming. i think that if athletes, for example, who if they are looking for a civil rights campaign, this is it it. those athletes who are sick and tired of this, i think this is their civil rights campaign.

to get guns off the street. >> i'm a sportsman. i have firearms. i hunt deer and pheasants and all that kind of stuff. you want law-abiding citizens to give up their rights to own firearms at this point? that's a fair question. >> it is a fair question. and i take every opportunity to emphasize. i'm glad you asked it again. absolutely not. >> well then you have a law-abiding citizen who happened to be an nfl player who gets a great deal of visibility because of this tragic incident. should he have not been able to own a firearm? >> the 2nd amendment has been decided. it's within his right to own a firearm. he should have been aware of the risks associated with it. i think there's an education job we need to do there. we need to have an honest conversation about the risks and dangers associated with firearms. and we need to do what we can from a policy perspective to keep the guns out of the hands of people that are known

dangerous. i mean, you have 40% of all gun sales in this country don't go through a background check. there are things we can do like background checks to keep guns you out of the hands. we can't prevent every tragedy. but we can prevent a lot of them and that's what we have to focus on. we're better than this. >> the culture of the nfl is you have a bunch of young players who have a lot of money early in life. not all of them make the right decisions. they have the pressure to keep their job. they have injuries. we don't know everything that surrounded this. all of a sudden, a firearm is involved. is there anything the nfl can do to prevent this kind of stuff? >> tragically, and i think the question is no. it would be great if roger goodell could say, okay, if as a condition of coming into this league -- >> every company has rules. >> i would love to see him try it. but you get into the constitutional issues.

i just think it's deeper than that. this is a weapons culture. i just think that i would love to see it happen. but if we talk about hunting, as a society, our attitude toward the taking of life and how we define who lives, who doesn't live. >> if we don't have the conversation now, when are we going to have it? and i commend bob costas for what he did last night. took a great deal of courage. there are always people going to be heckling. bill rhoden and dan gross, good to have you with us. coming up, hillary clinton's possible first campaign ad for 2016. we're right back. [ female announcer ] think you need to go to a department store counter

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aide l son. a rigged game, but the people called the odds and won. and daniel tweets, he doesn't think adelson waste d his money because stimulus is good. keep sharing your thoughts on facebook and twitter. coming up, as world leaders pile on praise for outgoing secretary of state hillary clinton, speculation just brews about a 2016 campaign. i'll ask michael tomasky if a presidential run is in her future.

i asked you whose plan to avoid the fiscal cliff is better for the middle class? 98% democrats. 2% say republicans. coming up a farewell video for hillary clinton. the the video is awesome. "the daily beast" michael tomasky will tell us if hillary

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her strength, toughness, very strong principle. >> she's highly personable. she's the people's secretary. >> she arrives some place, everybody pays attention. >> it makes her extremely effective with foreign leaders and i feel also effective with the american public. >> someone that knows a thing or two about political comebacks. i don't think we have heard the last of hillary clinton. >> domestic and international leaders praised clinton in the six-minute clip. this video seems like an international endorsement of a presidential campaign ad all rolled into one. but the kind words didn't stop there. hillary clinton's boss recorded this special message for her. >> through it all, i have relied on the shining qualities that have defined your life. your conviction, your optimism, your belief that america can and

must be a force for good in the world. i'll say it again. you've been one of the best secretary of states in american history. >> there doesn't seem to be any democrats that could come close to hillary clinton or joe biden when it comes to running for president, but there's plenty of time. we're only three years and 11 months away from election day. let's turn to michael tomasky, correspondent for t"the daily beas beast". it's a lot of fun to talk about it, but it's amazing -- not that she doesn't deserve it. it's a quick endorsement on all fronts globally. how do you compete with that? >> it's awfully tough to compete with that. the speculation, ed, it didn't start this weekend at this event. speculation started before this election even took place. there were already articles in september and october about what hillary clinton would do. we don't know what she's going

to do. it will be interesting to find out. but presumably some time around the 2014 midterms, right after those midterms is probably whether perspective candidates will take stock of things, do some polls, size up questions, talk to the people close to them and i think she'll be among those people. she's probably very interested in being president. i don't think she's itching, desperate to be president, but she's very interested in taking a shot if the circumstances are right. >> what kind of work does she have to do in the next two years? obviously, she's going to rest a little bit. take care of herself. she's been on a torrid base paste around the globe. she's done a remarkable job. a ringing endorsement from the president of the united states. what does she have to do in the next two years? >> it's a good question. something kind of nonpolitical. something noncontroversial.

i don't know if she wants to move back to the domestic arena. but stay in the foreign arena which keeps you a little above the fray. one of the great benefits of being secretary of state for her is she hasn't been involved in domestic politics. she hasn't been in a position to sound off on issues and take stance on domestic issues. that's isolated her a bit from the old criticism that she always used to get from the people on the right. so i try to maintain, if i were advising her, i would tell her to try to maintain that stature a bit before you really jump back into the pool. >> what democrat other than joe biden could challenge her? >> i don't know that even biden could really. biden has been a very good vice president and if things keep going, he doesn't have her star power.

he doesn't have her ability to attract money. he doesn't have the excitement that she'll offer to democratic base voters. okay we elected the first african-american president. now let's finish and elect the first woman president now. i don't think anybody has that kind of calling card. >> it comes down to the money. the one thing the clintons can do is raise money. that may endear them. the money game is certainly different than what it was before. what about that? >> i think that's right. and she's not going to have outside of biden, who i don't think is really stiff competition for her. i don't think outside of that there is. it's not going to be like in 2008 she was one of three in the top tier. she's going to be the top tier in 2016 if she decides to run.